Despite promising to secure stab vests for prison officers nearly two months ago Labour has made no progress to fulfil its promise. On 3 June Shabana Mahmood announced in the Commons amid a wave of violent attacks against prison officers:
“I know this House shares my anger at recent attacks against prison officers. After the awful events at HMP Frankland, I commissioned a review of the use of protective body armour. Today, I can announce I will mandate its use in Close Supervision Centres, Separation Centres, and Segregation Units in the High Security Estate.”
Over seven weeks later and in response to a written question from Robert Jenrick the MoJ has confirmed that officers still don’t have their armour:
“We are working to ensure that PBA will be made and issued as quickly as possible. Staff continue to have the ability to wear PBA (with other personal protective equipment) when necessary.”
Meanwhile the attacks continue. Labour might want to get a move on…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”